EUGENE SANTORO, Kingston: Government gives too many too much

Saturday

Oct 27, 2012 at 12:01 AMOct 27, 2012 at 8:41 PM

Pride is a vanishing word; incentive and motivation are lost challenges; the government freely gives too much to people, and if one continues to take from the government long enough, the initial need becomes an everlasting want and the initial gift becomes an expectation.

I remember my family, my mother’s family in particular; she had nine brothers and a sister. My grandmother and grandfather lived on the second floor of a coldwater flat in South Boston, two bedrooms, no hot water, and no shower. They had an ice box and a wood stove. My grandfather would go to the Commonwealth fish pier where he fixed boat engines for needy fishermen. If there was no work to be found he would go on a fishing tour boat and bring home whatever he caught.

At the end of the day, he would get out his guitar or mandolin and sing songs in Sicilian Dialect. He would tell the young ones stories that would make them laugh to tears. We were coaxed into entertaining the others with songs, dance and funny games and stories. Grandpa seemed to enjoy everything we did.

Grandma was always dressed in black and never seemed to have any new clothes. At night my mother knew when her mother went to bed, because she would hear the newspapers she slept on crinkle and crunch. My mother used to keep the bed bugs off of the young ones till she fell asleep.

For breakfast we had a cup of coffee and a piece of bread to dunk in the coffee. For lunch we may have spaghetti, my grandmother made herself, with tomato sauce and meatballs, if we had any ground beef, if no ground beef she put a cut-up hotdog in the sauce. No one reached for food or said a word until grandpa sat down and took the first morsel of food. If you tried to take a piece of food before grandpa you received a wooden spoon over your knuckles. We had what people today call gourmet food. Grandpa or grandma would go to the local butcher and ask for remnants of meat and worthless entrails. We learned to eat liver, heart, lungs, stomach lining, feet, brains, and eyes. We ate fish as well as squid, eels, urchins, clams, periwinkles and mussels.

The house was heated with wood from the local store. We never complained because we were always fed and we had each other, we were family; we were rich with the feeling of security and the drive to help and protect one another. We never went to the church or the government for help, we were self-sufficient, we never saw ourselves as poor. I never realized I was poor until someone told me I was.

My personal opinion is that today pride is a vanishing word; incentive and motivation are lost challenges; the government freely gives too much to people, and if one continues to take from the government long enough, the initial need becomes an everlasting want and the initial gift becomes an expectation.

Eugene A. Santoro lives in Kingston

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